>there's going to be a run for the exits as it turns out that rents don't always go up No, but they tend to stay up when they get there. I have only seen them

>there's going to be a run for the exits as it turns out that rents don't always go up No, but they tend to stay up when they get there. I have only seen them go down once in my life in a town where the major employer left and about 1/4 of the town was economically impacted. It is not easy for many people to come up with a down-payment for a house. I know that there are programs to help people, but generally, renting is the only option for many people no matter how much the price of houses goes down (within reason). So people with money can just snap up cheap houses if the prices fall or sit on their money for now and collect rents if interest rates skyrocket.